Thursday, May 29, 2014

I have been looking at some 6mm lately and I am really liking what I see. These are the project that I have thought about doing and one or two of them might join the Lizards in the queue this year.

Lizardmen

--Right now I am in the middle of working on a Lizard list for generic fantasy rules. I have a few unit nearing completion and I have plans on expanding what I already have.--

Kislev

--I worked out most of a list on what to pick up for a 6mm WM army for them, I just have to figure out the War Wagon and it should just be down to ordering and painting it all up.--

Brettonian

--Another list that should be pretty easy, Baccus has some great stand ins from their Crusades, English Civil War and Crusades lines. The 6mm Pegasus Mounts might be the toughest find for the list. I might be able to snip some Giant Eagle wings and reattach them to a standard mount. This is another list that could pull historical and fantasy duty--

Araby

--I have a few thing in mind, this could end up as Warmaster and Ancients with the core pulling double duty with the more fantastical units being rotated out.--

Samurai

--Another MWA, generic and WM option but I would have to try and track down some of the more fantastical units.--

Godzilla

--There are a few rules systems out there to do these battles, I just need to decide what nation and get the harassers for the Giant Monsters to step on and the terrain. Honestly the tanks and what not usually just end up as terrain in these games so it is something that I found to be neat but the toys are the main drive of the game.--

Okami Technocracy Combine

--I really just want to paint up some of their battle suits.--

Quozotel(Lizardmen Sci-fi)

--Unreleased from Onslaught Miniatures, it will be hard to resist once they are released. Might serve as a proxy army for Eldar in Epic but I will know more once I see the models.--

Wildland Alliance

--Unreleased from Microworld Games right now but will be hard for me to resist. Will either end up as a generic list or I might try to figure out something for WM, maybe Ogre Kingdoms.--

Ratmen

--Unreleased from Microworld Games right now but will be hard for me to resist.--

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

I am going to start a Kislev proxy list since Araby seems to be pretty well covered right now. I wanted to go with more of a herd list, something that could really get the feel of this massive herd just roaming over the steppes and raiding villages and using a lot of mobile and fast striking warfare. Here is what I have in mind so far, all of Kislev would be from MWG.

My fill in for Knights.

Centaur Nobles

These guys are going to be my Horse Archers

Centaur Archers

For Bowmen I was thinking these guys would do.

Faun Archers

Axemen, not really sure what to use for them but my front runner are these two.

Werebears

Drilled Beastmen

Bears, I have two option.

Owlbears

Dire Boars

For the Bear mount I figured these guys would do nicely.

Gian-taur

For the War Wagon I'm not sure how big I want to go but either I could go all out with this guy. Unfortunately neither really fit the Warmaster rules so I might have to try my hand at scratch building a couple.

Mammothtaur

Beastmen Chariot

For characters and the like I was going to go with these guys.

Beastmen Command

The next army I want to work on is going to have these guys at the core, but I need to find some with hand weapons to really fill out.

All from Baccus miniatures.

I figured I would fill out the list with things to represent skin walkers and other nature like spirits, but I am not sure what I would really run them as but I think it could be fun..

Monday, May 05, 2014

So Microworld Games makes a wonder line of 6mm sci and fantasy miniatures. I made a couple orders from the Lizardmen line about a year ago and they have been staring at me from my primed shelf since that time.

So there was the first test model and I am pretty happy with it, I am unsure on what system of basing to use since I have no system in mind to play them with but I think I might have them on 40mm x 40mm in a 6 rider strong wedge formation just because it would look good. I have kicked around 20mm x 40mm and 40mm x 20mm so who know where I will be when I finally get enough done for the fist round of basing.

I have several larger dinosaurs and some foot to round out the army plus some command to make things interesting, but the basing is always something that trips me up at this scale. I don't know why since I hardly get time to paint, never mind getting miniatures to the tabletop. Although I am lucky enough to have a collective of friends and family that love boardgames so it isn't as bad as it could be.

Sunday, May 04, 2014

...the only way I can enjoy wine. Now I haven't played Viticulture so that could change. I have played several games by myself and the wife and I just finished our second game, this is by far the most intricate game we have played to date.

The fact that you only have twelve actions and whatever else you can manage through bonuses and the like make for a fun(in our opinion at least) exercise of min/max value of each move. Money is tight in the game and we are definitely going to try several strategies. Things like being able to block out a player or make them take a loan out to do what they wanted but you also gain money from already having taken that action(any time a another player's pawn is on an action space they must be paid 1000 bagos, as well as 1000 bagos to the bank if the turn order marker is also on the space), this means you have to have a sense of timing for when to perform actions or you could get locked into passing.

The whole game revolves around making wine and using it to gain fame at the wine fairs(three fairs happen in the game). The weather at the start of the year will determine if the wine is a better or worse quality and you have several ways to directly influence the quality. The other actions range from hiring experts for certain aspects of the wine to help during the regular phases or you can use them for one time boosts at the fair, selling the wine for money or victory points and doing a little banking.

This is a game I want to play several more times quickly so things can lock themselves into my brain but the game is fun, dense and tense so I am all for it.

Thursday, May 01, 2014

So the missus and I love Pandemic, one of our early ventures after getting back into board games. We didn't exactly win often but we loved how tense the game felt and how we knew that Epidemic card was coming and all our plans were going to go up in smoke. I think we played close to twenty games and won two or three of those before adding in the first expansion. We have yet to win a game with the expansion but it doesn't see the table as much these days.

Enter Robinson Crusoe.

Every turn you are faced with game altering decisions to play it safe or to try and stretch your resources and rely on luck to help you finish the tasks at hand. You just can't do everything you need to do in the game and it becomes a high level risk management to try and achieve whatever goal the scenario has set for you before time runs out. This game is out to get you but I never feel that it is personal, weird I know, but I feel that it is very clever in the way it doesn't feel like you are being attacked but that bad things are just happening. It is a hard feeling to get across but one that, for me at least, goes a long way towards the theme of the game.

The game has 6 scenarios and a free extra make by the game's creator that can be printed up if you run through the rest or want something special. The first expansion in also coming out in english this summer. I personally love the King Kong scenario. Now in each scenario the goal is different and the items that you can make often change so you never quite get the same feel out of each play through of a single scenario. If any one of your party dies you lose, so knowing when to hunt or how to judge the weather are all key things to keep in mind, then you usually have to achieve a goal in addition to surviving.

In short, it gives me the tension of pandemic but at a more personal level and adds a ton of ways to scale the game's difficulty. What more could I want? Except for dinosaurs, but than again I hear some fans are working on that.